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Class iiTs 
Book_ 
Copyright )J^_ 






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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Foreign Religious Series 



Edited by 
R. J. COOKE, D. D. 



First Series. i6mo, cloth. Each 40 cents, net. 



THE VIRGIN BIRTH 

By Professor Richard H. Grutzmacher, of the 

University of Rostock 



THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS 

By Professor Eduard Riggenbach, of the University 
of Basle 



THE SINLESSNESS OF JESUS 

By Professor Max Meyer, Lie. Theol., Gottberg, 

Germany 



THE MIRACLES OF JESUS 

By Professor Karl Beth, of the University 
of Berlin 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN AND THE 

SYNOPTIC GOSPELS 

By Professor Fritz Barth, of the University 
of Bern 



NEW TESTAMENT PARALLELS IN 

BUDDHISTIC LITERATURE 

By Professor Karl Von Hase, of the University 
of Breslau 



The Sinlessness of 
Jesus 



By 

MAX MEYER 

Lie. Theol., Gottberg, Germany 




NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM 






fuBRARYofOONiwESs] 
\ Two Copies R«;S!vs(2 

DEC 24 i90f 

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C. Ho. 




Copyright, 1907, by 
EATON & MAINS. 



THE SINLESSNESS OF JESUS 

"For we have not an high priest which cannot be 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was 
in all points tempted like as we are, yet without 
sin." Heb. 4. 15. 

This cardinal passage which asserts the 
sinlessness of Jesus, affirms not merely the 
testimony of the Scripture that Jesus was 
without sin (Heb. 4. 15), it leads further; it 
leads into the mysterious realm of the temp- 
tations of Jesus and his struggles with sin, 
and puts us thereby before the deepest and 
most tender problems in the question as to 
the sinlessness of Jesus. 

Hebrews 4. 15 will give us the direction 
toward which we shall make our inquiry. 
Let us begin first with an examination of the 
passages on the sinlessness of Jesus. 

I. Jesus Without Sin According to the 
Scriptures 

Without sin; this is the shining inscrip- 
tion under the life of Jesus. If the Lord had 
possessed only one dark spot^ how spite- 



5 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

fully and maliciously his enemies would have 
attacked him! But defiantly he can chal- 
lenge them : "which of you convinceth me of 
sin?'^ (Johns. 46.) 

With this judgment agree the sentiments 
of those who knew the Lord, such testi- 
monies as we may particularly trust. 

Judas, the child of perdition, after he com- 
mitted the deed, how may he have tried to 
allay his conscience by remonstrating with 
himself that in the end Jesus may have de- 
served punishment. In the torment of his 
remorses, how may he have considered in his 
mind the years of intercourse with the Lord, 
wishing to find even a shadow of guilt in the 
Lord ! But lamenting and accusing, he must 
exclaim: "I have sinned in that I have be- 
trayed innocent blood" (Matt. 27. 4). 

Pilate; how much would he have given 
had he been able to discover even the 
slightest wrong in the Lord in order to be 
able to vindicate the condemnation of Jesus 
and at the same time extricate himself; but 
before his soul Jesus stands spotless, and in 
spite of the most thorough examination, he 
is obliged to confess: "I find no fault in 
him" (John 19. 4; Luke 43. 4, 14, 15, 22). 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 7 

Even his wife is so certain of the integrity 
of Jesus that she warns her husband not to 
taint himself with the blood of the righteous 
(Matt. 2j. 19). 

The Roman centurion under the cross, 
while gazing on the person and death of 
Jesus, is obliged to confess : ^'Certainly this 
was a righteous man'' (Matt. 2y. 54; Mark 
15. 39; Luke 23. 47). 

The penitent thief who, like all criminals, 
has a clear eye for the innocency and purity 
of Jesus says : "This man hath done nothing 
amiss" (Luke 23. 41). 

Still more abundant are the voices of those 
who daily associated with him, who not only 
heard his words and saw his deeds, but who 
could also look most deeply into his heart; 
to them he is "he who knew no sin," "who 
did no sin," "the just and holy" (Acts 3. 14 ; 
8. 26; 2 Cor. 5. 21 ; I John 2. i, 29, 2>7\ i 
Peter i. 19 ; 2. 21, 22 ; 3. 18 ; Heb. 7. 2(y, 2y) . 

One cannot invalidate these testimonies of 
the disciples and friends of Jesus by saying 
that these men could not have applied the 
notion of sinlessness in absolute strictness to 
Jesus ; they could only judge of the outer le- 
gality of Jesus, but could not see into his 



8 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

heart ; and besides, the moral estimate of ac- 
tions is essentially dependent on the deter- 
mining motives. What had been going on in 
the heart of Jesus, of this they had no 
knowledge. 

But in analogy of the word (Matt. 7. 17 
seq.), we may be allowed to reason at once 
from the goodness of life to the purity of 
motive, and to this responds the self-testi- 
mony of Jesus (John 8. 46). By no means 
did Jesus intend to say : "You can show me 
no sin." This were unworthy of him who 
well knew what is in man, and who in ethical 
matters felt so unspeakably fine and tender. 
And words like those of John 4. 34; 5. 17; 
8. 29; 15. 10, assert Jesus's most rigid con- 
centration upon God. He who asserts one- 
ness with God (John 10. 30), as an expres- 
sion of the divine nature; he who can 
designate himself as the spiritual image of 
the Father (John 14. 9), from him sin must 
be absolutely precluded. 

Still another observation leads to this re- 
sult. It cannot be denied that Jesus lifted 
the Jewish religion of the law, of the letter 
which opposes man from the outside, to the 
religion of freedom and of the Spirit. Only 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 9 

that is truly good which is done from the 
whole heart and free love. Jesus thus trans- 
fers the pith of all religion to the disposition. 
How could the idea of such a religion have 
been born in the heart which yet somehow 
had the law beside or against itself, and 
which had caused displeasure to the will of 
God in any single point ? The fostering soil 
of such an ethically perfect religion can 
only be a heart in which the free, moral im- 
pulse to every good has the exclusive do- 
minion and becomes an act in every moment. 

Nevertheless, some thought to find in 
certain deeds of Jesus, something morally 
offensive. Thus, for example, in the arbitrar- 
iness of the boy who remained in the temple. 
But no word indicates that the tarrying of 
the boy was wrong. The very words of the 
twelve-year-old boy show that the conscious- 
ness of his perfect fellowship with God and 
the rule of this consciousness over his entire 
thought and life was then already the lead- 
ing principle, over against which consider- 
ation for men had to recede. 

We need only to mention the large-heart- 
edness of Jesus in his intercourse with publi- 
cans and sinners ; his supposed encroachment 



lo The Sinlessness of Jesus 

on the ownerships of others in the country of 
the Gadarenes — acts in which Jesus is simply 
true to his calHng of saving the souls of 
men. 

The cleansing of the temple by Jesus has 
been so misunderstood, that one has con- 
nected with it the notion of passion and vio- 
lence. But he forgets that there this act 
was not an emanation of personal passion. 
The disciples as eye-witnesses had at any 
rate this impression when they applied to the 
Lord the words of the Scriptures: "The 
zeal of thine house hath eaten me up" (John 
2. 17). Here stands before us not an irri- 
tated personality, but the wrath of love free 
from all selfishness. The extraordinary 
calling of Jesus entitled him to act thus. 
Such an act, however, could not at all be 
accomplished without a deep and shocking 
sense of the offence. But such seriousness 
and zeal is purely human and humanly great. 

In other times the sinlessness of Jesus 
seemed to be threatened by the inquiry into 
his capability of erring. 

First of all we must assert that with 
reference to the Messianic end as well as 
with reference to the means to this end, 



The Sinlessness of Jesus i i 

Jesus did not err or devote himself to illu- 
sions. At all events this hypothesis has 
no support from the time of his public 
ministry; and here it always depends 
whether we shall construct the picture of 
Jesus according to our conceptions and sup- 
positions, or, whether we shall yield to 
historical reality. Measured by historical 
matter of fact, that theory is false which im- 
putes to Jesus originally a Messianic plan 
with an admixed political tendency, and 
which afterward only makes him correct 
himself by the unfavorable turn of events. 

Ever3rthing rather points to this, that 
from the beginning Jesus foresaw his end 
and was led by it in all his acts. His way 
hidden from the beginning; his modest ap- 
pearance which is so little imposing that the 
Baptist wonders and is offended at it; his 
baptism, with the significant word of John ; 
his selection of the disciples; his avoidance 
of every semblance of making the most of 
his miracles and signs which goes so far that 
he forbade those whom he had healed to 
publish the news, and after certain events 
withdraws from the enthusiasm of the 
people; the non-performance of every ex- 



12 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

periment, of every manifestation which 
could glorify himself; the harshness of his 
demands (Luke 14. 25 seq.) and his aversion 
to hypocrisy or compromises (Matt. 23. 15), 
make it clear that from the beginning 
Jesus did not waver. The fate of the Baptist, 
the history of Jerusalem, the murderess of 
kings and prophets, predicted his catas- 
trophe, and the preaching of the kingdom 
(Matt. 13) already expresses the attitude of 
Jesus prepared for failure for the under- 
standing of which he educates his disciples. 

In the face of these historical facts from 
the life of Jesus, it must be regarded as fan- 
tasy that Jesus should have labored under an 
error concerning the plan of his kingdom. 
This belongs to the necessary spiritual in- 
ventory of his Messianic equipment. He 
saw here clearly and took no wrong course. 
This, however, does not preclude that in un- 
foreseen or unexpected matters Jesus could 
err. 

We may state that liability to error is not 
an irregular sign of being human. Holding 
fast to the humanity of Jesus, his liability 
to error is thereby also given, and this pos- 
sibility is simply established in his real hu- 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 13 

man mental life. His inner life also grew 
step by step and ripened into a perfect man- 
hood (Luke 2. 40, 42, 52). His soul is 
therefore also a finite quantity and is con- 
fined to temporal and spatial limits; its de- 
velopment also progresses under certain 
national, physical, geographical, climatic 
conditions. Hence it follows that Jesus, 
without prejudice to his infallibility in the 
sphere of revelation, could err in the per- 
ipheric sphere ; and in testifying of his igno- 
rance concerning the time and hour of the 
last judgment, Jesus himself acknowledged 
the limits of human prophecy^ (Matt. 24. 
36). Whoever is offended at this, forgets 
that perfection in the matters at issue belongs 
not to his ofhce, and therefore a defect there- 
in cannot consequently be a reproach to him. 
The office of Jesus is exclusively religious ; 
he will be nothing but the man of faith and 
obedience, the man after the heart of God, 
in whom the divine consciousness compre- 
hends and fills all, the bearer of everything 
which belongs to the certainties of right re- 

1 Nescience is not error. Error is a wrong act or state of 
mind. Jesus shows no error in not knowing what is or what 
may be unknowable, and, with respect to all else, over 
against the abstract "I can" is the ever energetic "I 
will not." [Editor.] 



14 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

lations between God and man, to the execu- 
tion of the divine decree of love to Jesus. 
This is the central, the fundamental, idea. 
He will be no less but also, no more.^ 



II. Jesus Tempted Like Ourselves 

When we speak of sinlessness we do not 
mean thereby the metaphysical property, the 
being lifted absolutely beyond every possi- 
bility of evil which would admit neither of a 
being tempted nor of moral development. 
But by sinlessness we understand only thd 
ability not to sin and not to have sinned. 
Had God from the start made it impossible 
for Jesus to sin, he could not at all have been 
able to give himself to God in free self- 
decision and to will the good. Each tempta- 
tion would have been for him a perfectly in-' 
different, meaningless event; yea, his entire 
development could not altogether be called 
truly human. And it becomes inconceivable 
how, in the Scripture, Jesus could still be 
presented as our example in whose steps we 
should follow. A sinful man, who only 



^See Ullman's The Sinlessness of Jesus. 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 15 

bravely bears up against sin, seems more 
suitable as an example than a sinless Jesus 
who, completely inviolable, had of course 
cast off, so to speak, all temptations of Satan 
and sin. Indeed, the possibility to sin be- 
longs to the truth of the human nature which 
we must not explain away in a docetic fash- 
ion. We will admit, without question, that 
temptation without the possibility of falling, 
is no temptation. 

But now it is said : Jesus was in all points 
tempted like ourselves. These words do not 
permit us to combine w^ith the notion 
"Temptation" another idea, as if the temp- 
tations of Jesus were of another kind than 
ours. On the contrary, these words mean 
to say that Jesus has a life behind him, in 
which in all relations he has been equally 
tempted like ourselves; and, if so, that ac- 
cording to Hebrews 4. 15 the many attacks 
and temptations enabled Jesus to be touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities, that he 
alone can have pity on us, who really suffers 
w^th us. 

Had Jesus himself not suffered under the 
temptations of life, had it not been necessary 
for him to take into account the possibility 



1 6 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

of falling, he could never have learned pity, 
sympathy, that kindly disposed feeling 
toward the sinner. But because he himself 
experienced in himself the weakness of hu- 
man nature and the temptations to which we 
are exposed in this sinful world, the inner 
power accrued to him to put himself in our 
condition and to have a true, living, sympa- 
thetic fellow-feeling with us (Heb. 2. 17, 

18). 

It is impossible that the temptations of 
Jesus could have been merely outward acts, 
sham temptations, which from the start had 
to recoil from him because he stood on the 
unassailable height of absolute holiness. On 
the contrary, the temptations must have 
seized him also inwardly ; must have brought 
sufferings and struggles to him. For this 
reason we must also speak of his suscepti- 
bility to temptation in the world's full mean- 
ing; of the necessity of fighting against sin 
with the possibility of falling. 

It may indeed be difficult for us to imagine 
Jesus, as Luther says, as one who has 
trouble in keeping away Satan ; but without 
this suggestion, all that we hear concerning 
Jesus's temptation is without meaning and 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 17 

purpose. The heroic grandeur of a soul 
devoted to God, consists not in this, that 
from the start it is impossible for it to de- 
cide against God and His will, but rather 
in this that it lays hold of the will of God, 
though it requires a struggle. 

All that the historical, biographical por- 
trait of Jesus exhibits of temptations corre- 
sponds with this. 

The history of the temptation at the be- 
ginning of his public ministry is already sig- 
nificant. If one here wishes from the very 
start to eliminate the eventual decision on 
the part of the tempter as an impossibility, 
let him not be afraid of the inference, that 
the whole incident is for Jesus nothing but 
delusion. But when the angels came and 
ministered unto him, does this not mean 
that peace and safety returned in the con- 
sciousness of Jesus? And where peace 
comes, struggle, at least settlement with the 
temptation, has preceded. And the counter- 
part at the end of his life, at Gethsemane, is 
it not telling of the bitter seriousness of the 
temptation which disturbed Jesus ! "Not my 
will, but Thy will," this word is the trium- 
phal song after hard^ inner struggle. And 



iS The Sinlessness of Jesus 

what do we make of Jesus himself when we 
deprive his word to the disciples: "Ye are 
they which have continued with me in my 
temptations" ^(Luke 22. 28) of every forcible 
character ! 

After all, it can no more be doubtful that 
Jesus was tempted like ourselves; that the 
possibility in him was not merely an ab- 
straction. His life accordingly, must have 
had also an entirely different, a more uni- 
form course. But some think that the out- 
ward life of Jesus had never been disturbed 
in its harmony. Strauss has called it the 
"Hellenic in Jesus." But he overlooks the 
thought of a vigorous, true development. 
Such a picture of Jesus gives it a character 
of stiffness and immobility. It must not be 
forgotten that the soul of Jesus was suscepti- 
ble of deep emotions. 

All the evangelists tell us of instances 
in which Jesus exhibited great feeling, 
as for example, at the sepulchre of Lazarus, 
where the groaning in the spirit Is connected 
with physical manifestation (John 11. 33- 
38). According to this Jesus showed forth 
a tender, sentimental nature. Thus also we 
understand the rejection of Peter in its pe- 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 19 

culiar keenness (Matt. 16. 23), It can only 
be understood when Peter's demand excited 
his sensitiveness and the possibiHty of his 
own flesh and blood being tempted to avoid 
the cross. 

Likewise we notice in John 6. 15, when the 
people desired to make him a king, Jesus de- 
parts in order to avoid temptation. 

He did not rush to martyrdom nor did he 
provoke it wildly. So long as it were pos- 
sible, he avoided the danger (John 7. i ; 
II. 54). What awaits him at the end of his 
saving task puts a burden on him which is 
not so easy for him. 

The Scripture hesitates to ascribe to 
Jesus the strongest expressions of the hu- 
manly natural fear of death (Heb. 5. 7). 
The bitterness of his death overcomes him 
so intensely that for a time it dominates 
his thought and feeling ; and, in spite of the 
people who surround him, he must relieve 
his mind in the words: "Now is my soul 
troubled; and what shall I say? Father, 
save me from this hour" (John 12. 27). In 
the prayer-struggle, which is not free from 
doubts, he prepares for his end. Like a 
flood the fate of his death surges over his 



20 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

soul when he cries : "My God, my God, why 
hast Thou forsaken me?" These facts 
throw a bright hght on the really human, 
physical, internal and mental life of Jesus 
and clearly show that he was tempted like 
ourselves. 

We must here raise the question: Is the 
picture of the sinless Jesus not shaken by 
this statement of fact? Do the statements 
concerning the sinlessness of Jesus not re- 
quire a correction? How can Jesus be 
tempted in all points as we are, and yet 
remain without sin? If we actually and 
seriously had to deal with temptation, does 
not at least a minimum of sinfulness redound 
on him? Has not temptation for us, as a 
rule, a sinfully retarding, corrupting influ- 
ence? How can both be harmonized, that 
he was tempted in all points as we are and 
yet, at the same time, remained without sin ? 
This is the problem which must be solved. 

HI. The Problem and Its Solution 

In spite of all the seriousness of the temp- 
tation, Jesus can only have remained with- 
out sin provided the temptation came to him 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 21 

not from himself, not from within, but from 
without. This a priori opinion is confirmed 
by the historical picture of Jesus. Whenever 
we hear of the temptations of Jesus we never 
hear that they proceeded from his own heart. 
Temptations came to him from his nearest 
surroundings. His mother tempted him 
(John 2. 41) ; his brothers (John 7. i seq.; 
Mark 3. 21); Peter (Matt. 14. 22); his 
people (John 6) ; the scribes (Matt. 22. 
35; Mark 12. 28, 34; Luke 10. 25); the 
devil (Luke 4. 13) ; his sufferings become a 
temptation to him — temptations, all of which 
are brought to him from without. 

It is, therefore, the sense of the Scripture 
when we absolve Jesus from his own temp- 
tations; and rightly so. Had the tempting 
pictures arisen from his own heart, as, for 
example, the history of the temptation de- 
scribes them, the bottom of his heart were a 
home of evil thoughts and Jesus could never 
more be considered as sinless. Had he to 
overcome only one indwelling tendency 
to evil, he were already defiled just by this, 
perfect as we may conceive him to be. If 
with Kant we acknowledge already the pro- 
pensity to sin, the sinful disposition, as an 



22 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

innate dowry of our empirical nature, it is 
clear that we must absolve Jesus from this 
inheritance and must consider him sinlessly 
constituted from his birth. Jesus could not 
be tempted from his own inherent issue of 
sin. The word (Jas. i. 14)^ "of his own 
lust" relates only to us. 

With this correspond the other statements 
of Scripture. Whoever limits the text (2 
Cor. 5. 21) of knowing no sin, only to oc- 
curring deeds of sin, but considers evil 
inclinations as not precluded, does no justice 
to the Lord who separates so strictly and 
keenly between good and evil, and who calls 
him a sinner already who commits adultery 
in his heart, who hates his brother or is 
angry at him. Had the least inclination of 
sinful lust been in Jesus himself, the father 
of sin had had something in him. He is not 
like ourselves who offer to temptations the 
inborn propensity to deception. 

Thus understood, Jesus was differently 
organized from his birth than we are. The 
Scripture also does justice to this factor. 
When Paul characterizes the human side of 
Jesus (Rom. 8. 3), with the words: "In the 
likeness of sinful flesh," he certainly does 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 23 

not do away by this term with every differ- 
ence between the flesh of Christ and that of 
sin. He could have accompHshed this better 
by merely writing "in sinful flesh." The 
term must rather put beside equality an ine- 
quality. Since in other statements Paul 
briefly speaks of Christ's descent "according 
to the flesh" (Rom. i. 3; 11. 5; comp. Col. 
1.22', 2 Tim. 3. 16 ; John 4. 2) ; the equality 
must consist in this, that it was not sinful 
flesh. Like ours, therefore, though "among 
men" (Heb. 5. i ; John 8. 40; i Tim. 2. 5), 
yet he is at the same time "in the likeness of 
men" (Phil. 2. y). And though he also had 
"the weakness of the flesh" (2 Cor. 13. 4; 
I Pet. 3. 18) , he was yet only "in the likeness 
of sinful flesh." 

And, moreover, what we hear concerning 
the history of the infancy of Jesus in 
Matthew and Luke, concerning his virgin 
birth and his being conceived by the Holy 
Ghost, points to this, that Jesus claims at the 
roots of his existence an exceptional po- 
sition, since at his entrance into humanity 
God himself intervened creatively and 
through His Spirit severed him from con- 
nection with sinful nature. Already in the 



24 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

natural ground of his individual life he has 
the direct impress of divinity. 

To this answers the history of the infancy 
and boyhood of Jesus. Here, too, we hear 
nothing of any troubling of his divine con- 
sciousness. Had any inner struggles pre- 
ceded his public ministry, they would have 
destroyed the inner life-harmony of Jesus. 
Sin can never be so eradicated that it does 
not subsequently shew its after-effects upon 
the moral consciousness. A guilty con- 
science always makes one anxious, and some 
crises in the early life of Jesus ought to have 
left traces and scars in his later life or ought, 
at least, to have entailed a trait of sad recol- 
lection, a want of security and gladness be- 
traying itself. Even Paul, in spite of the 
certainty of salvation surpassing time and 
space (Rom. 8. 28 seq.), cannot get rid of 
the thought of the dark guilt of his Phari- 
saical past (i Cor. 15. 9; I Tim. i. 12). 
Of this there is no trace in Jesus. His moral 
power shines before us in original freshness 
and purity. The word of the twelve-year- 
old Jesus in the temple is significant of the 
consciousness of his unity with God which 
was troubled by nothing. And, according to 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 25 

the testimony of the Baptist at the baptism, 
and above all after his refusal to perform 
the baptism, Jesus had to confess no sin. 
All this necessitates the affirmation that 
Jesus was originally a being endowed with a 
vigor which possessed a moral faculty in its 
original integrity and in keeping with this, 
a capacity which developed itself from the 
beginning. 

So far Heb. 4. 15 experiences an im- 
portant modification. In spite of the vastest 
equalization of the temptations of Jesus with 
ours, a difference still remains. One class 
of temptations which is found in us, was not 
found in Jesus. No temptation existed for 
Jesus from an inherent, sinful desire already 
found in him. There was not in him a dis- 
position to sin which must first be overcome. 
From the beginning, rather, he was free 
from all proneness to sin. Temptation 
found no sin in him. 

But do we really withdraw everything 
which we asserted from the beginning con- 
cerning the reality of the temptations in the 
life of Jesus ? Under this psychological sup- 
position can there yet be the question of 
temptation without the existence of evil, 



26 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

without anything in us which sympathizes 
with temptation? Do we not thereby pre- 
clude the reahty of the moral struggle and 
by it the reality of being tempted? Can 
there be a question at all of a growing 
strong in the good, of vigorous progress, un- 
less such advancement goes hand in hand 
with continual repulsion of the evil origin- 
ally inherent in life? 

We must maintain that sin is not at all es- 
sentially necessary for the development of 
human personality. True, sin belongs to 
our empirical nature; but reason and con- 
science attest that our actual nature is ab- 
normal on this point. Sin is an anomaly, a 
contradiction to our idea. And no one will 
assert that the more we sin, the more human 
we become ; on the contrary, the less we have 
to do with sin, the nearer we come to the 
ideal of humanity. 

This ideal we find personified in Jesus. 
For him sin Is not an inborn quantity; but 
for all that he did not possess from the be- 
ginning the perfection which excluded ad- 
vancement. Moral progress consists not 
merely in the negative, that one is evermore 
free from sin ; it needs also something posi- 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 2J 

tive, a growtH and a getting strong in the 
good. The negative moment of growth 
ceases in the case of Jesus. But it lies in the 
nature of the good that it becomes and 
grows out of itself; it must be apprehended 
and maintained. Though that which forms 
the uniqueness of Jesus is originally in him, 
yet it exists only as disposition. This dispo- 
sition, however, can only be developed by 
voluntary action. His innocent, and from 
principle, divinely directed but not yet tested 
and approved will, Jesus must in a concrete 
way first divinely appoint and develop into 
character. For this reason he has ever to 
choose and to learn. Moral perfection, he had 
to obtain first (Heb. 2. lo; 5. 8, 9) ; only the 
exalted is being made perfect (Heb. 7. 
28). He too had to be godly and faithful 
toward his God (Heb. 3. 2; 5, 7). On this 
account he is also called "the author and 
finisher of our faith'' (Heb. 12. 2). He too 
had to learn obedience (Heb. 5. 8). This 
very word is especially significant for the 
unique course of the development of Jesus. 
He learned obedience, that is, he rose not 
from disobedience to obedience, but step by 
step, from obedience to obedience. The 



28 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

obedience which existed from the beginning, 
became strong by every more difficult trial. 
By every new sense of resignation and sub- 
mission to the will of God, his obedience 
was proved anew, and each proof of obedi- 
ence meant a strengthening of his moral de- 
velopment and at the same time, also an ad- 
vance. It is growth in the good which also 
took place in Jesus. This development in an 
ascending line is especially illustrated by the 
word from the lips of the youthful Jesus 
(Luke 2. 40, 52). The prayerful struggle 
in Gethsemane also reveals to us the secret 
of his progress. The comparison of the 
second prayer with the first prayer, denotes 
already a growth in obedience. There is a 
pure moral development where the evil needs 
not to be the negative condition of all prayer, 
a development which on this account is no 
less painful. We must yet give an account 
of that which gave the stimulus to the de- 
velopment of Jesus. What could impede his 
progress in growth? 

Now, what inclination was lacking in him- 
self to evil, is richly outweighed by his re- 
lationships in common and at the same time 
his opposition to a world with which he was 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 29 

vitally associated. Over against this world 
he had first to acquire compassionate mercy 
in overflowing measure (Heb. 2. 17). This 
was already necessary in the small circle of 
the disciples whose unsusceptibility to dis- 
cern as compared with the eagerness of the 
Master, was so often manifested. Also his 
hardships associated with emotions of dis- 
pleasure, innocent in themselves, his home- 
lessness, his hunger and thirst, could become 
for him a temptation. Above all the increas- 
ing hardening of his people, the envy and 
hatred of the Jewish authority, the slander, 
hypocrisy, enmity, malice, unfaithfulness, 
betrayal, denial, which he experienced, 
might have served to drive him into bitter- 
ness, impatience, dejection, despair and sad- 
ness. But this called forth the highest moral 
exertion of his soul, his full energy of will. 
The Lord suffered this not with stoical in- 
difference, for his real human nature linked 
him with the world. Though the Lord did 
not carry about himself the sinfulness of the 
human nature, with its evil inclinations, yet 
he shared its natural weakness (2 Cor. 13, 
4), which is by no means sin in itself, but 
which made him susceptible to the impure 



30 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

elements and pernicious influences of the 
world, so that ever3^hing which causes sin 
in us, could also tempt him. He, too, had to 
fight against it and them and could have 
gone over to a positive sin for which, not the 
stimulus, but the power was in him. 

The question must still be answered which 
makes the extremest point of the problem. 
Whether Jesus, in spite of this fleshly com- 
plexity with a sinful world still remained 
without sin ? For it need only to be men- 
tioned that, in case the existence of sin in 
Jesus is denied, this includes not only the 
actual sin which appears, but also the inner 
sin — sin in mere thought and volition, the 
deepest and most secret emotion of the 
mind. Was Jesus sinless in the fullest sense 
of the word? Is not temptation rather 
always allied with an at least transient sin 
of the mind? 

According to Heb. 4.15 Jesus was tempt- 
ed like ourselves in the above qualified sense 
but that he remained without sin. There is 
thus a limit on this side of which the temp- 
tation is without sin; on the other side it 
passes over into sin. Where is the point in 
temptation where sin commences, or the 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 31 

temptation itself becomes sin? We reply: 
It is not where temptation from the outside 
world represents itself to the human con- 
sciousness and is imagined by it. The 
thought of the evil is in itself indifferent ; it 
were indeed sin were it produced in the soul 
of man himself. But, as we have seen, the 
latter is precluded in the case of Jesus. In 
him his heart was pure throughout. But 
the thought of evil is not to be judged as 
sin when it is offered to the human mind 
from the outside, but finds a decided, com- 
plete opposition in the moment of its realiza- 
tion ; SO' that it cannot fix itself in any way. 
We must also say that there is no sin yet in 
the temptation where physical agitation 
arises through suffering, which under cir- 
cumstances might also bring about an un- 
godly turn of mind and bias of the will, but 
is here overcome by the higher, moral power. 
On the other hand, there is a point where 
temptation becomes sin; where one makes 
advances to evil with a sympathizing dis- 
position; for then it gets a footing In the 
heart of man, and seeks to make a real im- 
pression upon his mind and to become some- 
how decisive in his life. It affects feeling 



32 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

and imagination; perverts and troubles the 
moral judgment; kindles a discord in man; 
invites him to withdraw from the govern- 
ment of the higher principles and to separate 
himself from the divine order of life. 

Considering the historical appearance of 
Jesus under this point of view, it is conceiv- 
able how he could be tempted without sin. 
The temptation burst in upon him in its en- 
tire reality to lead him away from the path 
of the divine, but victoriously and sinlessly 
he opposed it, and sin could not force its way 
into his personality and defile him morally. 
This we see plainly in the history of the 
temptation. 

One may understand the story as he 
pleases, but this much is certain : According 
to the view of the Gospels, Jesus had thor- 
oughly to test the Messianic ideal which the 
public mind offered to him. This very story 
allows us to cast an exceedingly instructive 
glance into the mental life of Jesus. From 
the beginning Jesus possessed no super- 
natural perfectness; step by step he had to 
examine erroneous Messianic views, in or- 
der to see through them completely. He 
was also subject to the law of learning which 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 33 

was not possible without correcting- notions 
and expectations of his time. What was ex- 
pected of him, according to the narrative of 
the temptation, was actually in the line of 
that which his contemporaries expected of 
the Messiah ; and because Jesus was a child 
of the public mind at that time, he could not 
reject from the outset the Messianic picture 
of the people as a dream. 

The question which concerns us is this, 
whether Jesus in this temptation incorpo- 
rated into his own sphere of ideas, his per- 
fectly moral purity. Two things must be 
observed. In the first place these temp- 
tations were not the fantasies of his own 
mind. The Scripture takes this into* ac- 
count by opposing in an objective way, Satan 
to the Lord. The mistaken Messianic idea 
was not procured by Jesus himself, it was 
so to speak in the mental air which he in- 
haled when he was about to appear publicly 
as the Messiah. He could not grasp and 
appropriate the true Messianic idea without 
: refusing and rejecting another. The false 
Messianic idea was an objective matter of 
j fact for the Lord. Thinking of a matter 
of fact can not defile, however, so long as it 



34 iThe Sinlessness of Jesus 

exercises no alluring influence upon feeling 
and will. This is the other force which must 
be emphasized. But even this cause ceases 
in the case of Jesus. And what is the posi- 
tive outcome of the temptation-struggle? 

1. Jesus will not apply the higher powers 
given to him to his own interest, and for 
the supply of his physical need, anticipate, 
perhaps, the help of God. 

2. Jesus will not go self-chosen ways, 
thereby petulantly inviting God's wondrous 
power; he will not compel men to acknowl- 
edge his Messiahship by a visible conquest, 
or even by working of miracles. 

3. Jesus will not become faithless to his 
God and accept from the evil one, were it 
only the least help, in order to establish by 
force and deceit, his dominion over the 
world. 

Let us see how Jesus asserts these princi- 
ples over against the demands of Satan. It 
is surprising how decidedly and heedlessly 
Jesus asserts his conviction. He enters into 
no dispute with Satan. Where another 
would have to overcome an inner struggle, 
we see not the least wavering on his part. 
These refusals have the character of definite- 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 35 

ness, of what cannot be otherwise. Jesus 
does not hesitate about the answer, but is at 
once ready with the defence. As soon as the 
enticement presents itself to his thinking, it 
is immediately driven out by the power of 
his spirit. On this account evil could not 
defilingly enter his heart, it merely remained 
in the realm of thought. No coveting, or 
hesitating, or wavering, or pleasurable 
dwelling upon tempting phenomenon took 
place. The instantaneous breaking down of 
the thought preserved his purity of soul. 
The close of the narrative confirms this, 
"The angels came and ministered unto him." 
These words evidently express the mental 
disposition of Jesus, and denote the reflec- 
tion of his inner victories. In him lives the 
consciousness of a peace with God disturbed 
by nothing. 

Just so it is at the end of his life where 
we shall look still deeper into the struggle 
with the temptations to which Jesus was 
exposed. The prelude to Gethsemane in 
Jerusalem (John 12. 27-30) shows the Lord 
already in deep, struggling passion. In Jeru- 
salem, as well as in Gethsemane, it is the fear 
of death which like a dead weight burdens his 



36 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

soul. At each crisis nature resists the dy- 
ing with such power that its necessity be- 
came doubtful for the Lord. In Jerusalem 
so much so that Jesus must ask himself 
whether he should beseech the Father to be 
delivered from this hour of anguish. But 
immediately he has appreciated the necessity 
of the sacrifice and subordinated his will to 
that of his Father that His name might be 
glorified. Here also the purity of his soul 
is not troubled by the least desire to follow 
temptation. Here at Jerusalem the struggle 
is so momentary and the victory so complete, 
that Jesus could say when the voice came 
from heaven, that it happened not for his 
sake but for the sake of the people. 

It is otherwise in Gethsemane. There the 
struggle was threefold. Here the thought 
of the approaching suffering had thrown 
the Lord back into such an intense inner 
struggle that at the first prayer he asks in- 
deed to be delivered by God ; and the words : 
"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh 
is weak," revealed how deeply Jesus felt at 
this moment. This might seem as if the 
Lord had here lost something of his moral 
height and power. 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 37 

But this weakness of the flesh in itself is 
not yet sin, but is simply founded in what is 
perishable and capable of suffering in hu- 
man nature. The dread of the death of the 
fresh life which is found in every healthy 
organism, like hunger and thirst, is not to 
be regarded as a sinful emotion or even as 
weakness or cowardice, so long as it does 
not affect the temper and character. This, 
however, was not the case with Jesus. 

What took place at this moment in the 
soul of Jesus? Certainly not this, that it is 
his suffering which constitutes here his temp- 
tation ; indeed this is not the meaning of the 
prayerful question whether it is possible to 
save him from this hour. Jesus does not 
think at all of this possibility, but it is the 
"how" of his suffering which troubles him ; 
the realization of that which the human race 
was about to do; that it prepared to reject 
him who alone could save it, and thus fill 
up the measure of its iniquity ! He saw him- 
self handed over to the malice and brutality 
of men. This then was the end of his life ; 
that he was to suffer the extreme of evil by 
the hand of those whom he had sought for 
years in never-denying faithfulness ! 



38 iThe Sinlessness of Jesus 

With dread he looks down into this unex- 
ampled lost condition of his people whom he 
could not cease to love. Was it weakness 
when the sensitive nature of Jesus recoiled 
from this cruel blindness of his people, when 
in his love he wished that men would not 
perform on him this extreme atrocity, and 
therefore prays : "All but this ! Father, is it 
possible" ? Jesus would not have had a heart 
full of love, if this invincible hatred had not 
made the deepest shocking impression on 
him! But the sorrow of love over hatred 
is no sin ; the struggling of the purest divine 
mind against the meanness of the world is 
no cowardice. On the contrary, out of this 
seeming human weakness shines forth the 
matchless glory of Jesus. Recoiling from 
the cup of the Father brought forth only 
the purest, most loving feelings. We never 
saw so clearly before the bottom of Jesus's 
truly human and at the same time divine 
mental life. That he trembles to the secret 
fibers of his being when thinking of the path 
of suffering which opens before him, is 
only truly human and natural, especially in 
this moment when the terrible and unavoid- 
able IS immediately impending. As yet 



i The Sinlessness of Jesus 39 

Jesus has nothing tangible against which he 
could struggle; it means the hardest mo- 
ment, the pausing, immediate expectation of 
the fearful. 

And yet, we hear nothing of any bitter- 
ness or impatience, no complaint of the 
wickedness of men. One thing only speaks, 
the sorrow of love which asks the Father 
whether there is no other way tO' death than 
this heart-breaking way. This question 
shows indeed that the knowledge of his end 
which was certain to him long ago had been 
darkened in his consciousness in this mo- 
ment of deepest agitation. But at the same 
time, did Jesus waver for one moment ? It 
was as if he recoiled from the slightest self- 
will over against God ; for he only asks con- 
ditionally for the avoidance of this cup: 
"Father, if it be possible." Here also his 
will is immovably directed toward the 
Father ; no conflict of will, no wavering be- 
tween obeying and disobeying took place. 
Though the natural and purely human fear 
of suffering most keenly struggled against 
the endurance of the physical torments 
which awaited him; though the will of his 
weak flesh at this moment was so astir as 



'40 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

never before, Jesus nevertheless, submitted 
his natural will to this higher will, always 
agreeing with the will of his Father. He 
may tremble at the terrors of his way to 
death; he may even ask for that which is 
possible with God ; but it does not come to 
this that the temptation had any determining 
influence on his mind, or gave his will even 
for a moment a direction contrary to the 
divine will. One thing was certain with 
him: his will was anchored in God. No 
storm could tear it from its ground though 
the waves rise never so high! Under the 
shadows of death coming nearer and nearer, 
his soul tremblingly presses through to the 
knowledge : "It is not possible." The con- 
viction of the necessity of his dying obtains 
the upper hand, and now the will of the 
Father is also his own will : "Not as I will, 
but as Thou wilt." And his farewell from 
Gethsemane expresses the complete, unvio- 
lated, victorious power of his soul. The de- 
termination with which he meets his ac- 
cusers ; the calmness with which he bears his 
torments; the word directed tO' Peter who 
takes the sword, with his reference to the 
necessity that the Scriptures must be ful- 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 41 

filled, show his heroic grandeur which noth- 
ing could shake, which remained intact al- 
though his life was thrown to and fro like a 
little ship on the wild tide. 

Jesus loses nothing of his moral grandeur 
when on the cross he cried : **My God, my 
God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" This 
word expresses indeed the extreme sensation 
of the whole fearful power of the bodily 
experience which seemingly overcame Jesus. 
Nevertheless the address : "My God !" shows 
that here speaks not one who impatiently 
doubts, who is done with himself, his God 
and his cause, but that he who prays is a 
believer who clings to his God even in the 
most terrible depth, one who obediently sub- 
mits to this word of Scripture because he 
knows that he hereby brings to an end the 
decree of the Father. 

This much ought to result as a solution of 
our problem, that both statements concern- 
ing the sinless Jesus in Hebrews 4. 15 are 
consistent with each other, without collid- 
ing with each other; that Jesus could be 
tempted to sin yet remained without sin in 
the strictest sense of the word. By looking 
into his life we find both the great powers 



42 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

that assail him, and at the same time, the 
still more powerful moral strength with 
which they are held. He remained invulner- 
able in the struggle. In all temptations to 
which he was exposed, evil never gained the 
masteiy in any direction or in any degree, 
nor had brought him in conflict with him- 
self. He always asserted himself with the 
whole energy of his holy force of will. For- 
getful of himself he sought only the will of 
his Father. He is never induced to act 
arbitrarily or wilfully. He does nothing of 
himself (John 5. 17, 30). Obediently he 
goes hand in hand with God. No self-de- 
nial is too great for him. He could indeed 
have asked the Father to send him more 
than twelve legions of angels (Matt. 26, 
53) ; he could well do otherwise, but would 
not; the possibility never became a reality, 
but is removed in every critical moment 
through the divine in him. The divine ne- 
cessity, already alive in the twelve-year-old 
boy, always resounded in all decisions in his 
Hfe (Matt. 26. 54; Luke 14. 26). Whatever 
may affect and tempt him, his infallible in- 
ner, virtuous power always comes out from 
the tests of conflict. Where the noblest 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 43 

man even might have become embittered 
and indignant, he lost nothing of grandeur 
or peace. How mild is his rebuke about the 
disciples who were so slow in understanding 
and so captive to the worldly expectations 
of the Jews (Matt. 17. 7). For Jerusalem's 
impenitence he has only the complaint of re- 
jected love (Luke 19. 42). For fallen Peter, 
only a sorrowful glance (Luke 23. 61). 
The greater the wrong which he experienced, 
the greater was the divine manifestation of 
his divine life which never gives up the 
world. When the final test comes, his love 
is stronger than death! Having loved his 
own, he loves them to the end (John 13. 
1-15). What consideration, forbearance 
and tenderness toward Judas, even when he 
is taken captive! (Matt. 26. 49, 50.) How 
is this love enhanced from the time when his 
ministering humility was manifested by 
washing the feet of his disciples on to the 
crucifixion, when he prays for his murder- 
ers! (Luke 23. 34.) 

Thus his mind and will remained free 
from every affection of sin ; free from every- 
thing out of harmony with God. If Jesus 
had felt only the least guilty conscience, it 



44 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

would have appeared at his death. But the 
very seven words he spoke from the cross 
revealed the Lord in his moral supreme 
majesty and force the verdict that the hu- 
man self-consciousness was here completely 
merged in the divine consciousness, without 
any remnant. 

Again in the story of the rich young man 
(Matt. II. 1 6 seq. ; Mark lo. 17 seq. ; Luke 
17. 18) Jesus in refusing the predicate 
"Good," did not intend to designate conces- 
sions or make confessions of sin, meaning, 
that in sorrowful feeling he honored God as 
alone being good, retaining that state exclu- 
sively for himself. Had Jesus intended this, 
he would have simply sent away the young 
man with the negative answer that all aspira- 
tion for eternal good is after all useless, 
since none but God could ever attain the 
end. But Jesus shows the young man the 
very way to perfection and this in a manner 
which wholly identifies himself with the 
Father and His will. In contradiction to 
the young man who asked what must one do 
to obtain eternal life, thinking that it would 
emancipate himself from the A B C of the 
divine will, in place of which he would con- 
fer tfC:^ 



The Sinlessness of Jesus 45 

sent to do extraordinary "good" things, and 
therefore addressed Jesus in the expectation 
that he might perhaps show him another 
way than the traditional, through which he 
might obtain by tricks eternal life, though 
evading the divine law — over against all 
such thoughts Jesus emphasizes the divine 
commandments and thus connects himself 
indissolubly with the Father as the only 
"Good" one. On this account Jesus resists 
the over-liberal use of the word "good" ; 
since he finds in this designation a presump- 
tion which he refuses for himself. For 
"good" in the full sense of the word, that is 
moral perfection, is only God himself, the 
ethical absolute, who need not become this 
first by overcoming an evil tempting him; 
since he cannot be tempted with evil (Jas. 
I. 13), being on the other side of good and 
evil. Not so Jesus, who is still on the way ; 
whose development is not yet perfected. 
Though he knew no sin, he is yet moral in 
embryo, learning obedience; who is not yet 
exempted from temptations; but only 
through earnest struggling with tempta- 
tions, can come to perfection. 

Thus understood, the Lord himself con- 



46 The Sinlessness of Jesus 

firms here everything that can be said of the 
sinless Jesus in the temptations. In con- 
formity with the other statements of the 
Scripture, Jesus acknowledges here his re- 
lation to us which consists in this, that he, 
like ourselves, must advance toward the goal 
of perfectness but indeed with this unques- 
tionable difference that through every pos- 
sible temptation of life he preserved the 
closest unity with God, and therefore re- 
mained without sin, in accordance with his 
originally divine purpose. 



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